The best part about holiday shopping, aside from apple cider, is the overflow of shopping events (especially in the wake of such financial disarray).

Next week, Elle and Armani Exchange are teaming up to make you shop. And by Elle we mean Style Director Kate Lanphear.

The party’s next week, Tuesday, November 10 from 6pm-8pm at Armani Exchange’s Fifth Avenue store at 20th Street. You’ll get to preview Armani’s holiday collection, drink champagne and snack your way through the store. (Email RSVP@armamiexchange.com)

And if you spend over $100, you get to customize your own A/X t-shirt with Kate on hand to dish bedazzling advice.

If a tee designed by Kate isn’t the perfect pre-holiday treat, then we’re not sure what is.

Fancy yourself an ad-man?

If so, or if you’ve just watched one too many episodes of Mad Men, you can have a hand at creating an ad for Armani Exchange sunglasses.

They’re hosting a contest in which you make the best ad and they send you to Miami for a few days this winter (they also feature your ad on their website, but in the dead of winter the former prize might be a bit better). The first 500 people to submit an ad also win a pair of Armani Exchange sunglasses, but we have a sneaking suspicion you’ll need those beforehand, to make the ad; though they do clarify that the glasses in the ad don’t have to be Armani.

Natalia, student of The Institute of Audio Research.

Got Her: Heading south on Mott Street just below Prince.

Stalked Her: Because her (literally) head to toe blue look was just oh so Pantone 2008.

Shot Her: Because upon closer inspection, we realized she was wearing one of those puffy jackets we’ve always hated, but in a way we didn’t hate.

She Says: “The jacket is Armani Exchange, the bag is Marc Jacobs, the shoes are DKNY, and the jeans - I have no idea. I dyed my hair blue back in Moscow, where I work as a DJ under the name ‘Le Bleu.’”

We Say: Stand alone, Le Bleu!